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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28505100">if you can't break the mould, change the rules</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/winter_hiems/pseuds/winter_hiems'>winter_hiems</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men Legacy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Autistic David Haller, Blind Character, Canon Autistic Character, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Jewish Character, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Don't copy to another site, Established Relationship, Everybody Lives, F/M, Feelings, Fix-It, Intimacy, Kissing, Mental Health Issues, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Resurrection, Trust Issues, canon blind character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:27:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,371</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28505100</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/winter_hiems/pseuds/winter_hiems</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of X-Men Legacy, David vanishes from Ruth’s mind and reappears elsewhere.</p>
<p>This time around, he might actually have a chance at finding his place in the world.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ruth Aldine/David Haller</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“It’s not fair.”
</p><p>
“I had to, love.”
</p><p>
“I know.”
</p><p>
“The world would have gone to shit if I hadn’t done it.”
</p><p>
“I know.” Ruth clutched David tighter. “It’s just not fair on you. Outside of my mind, you don’t even exist anymore.”
</p><p>
“Yes, but you have to admit,” said David, pulling back and throwing his arms wide, “Your mind is a beautiful place to be.” He looked up at the soaring arches of Ruth’s mindscape, a smile curling his lips, then his eyes flicked back to her, his gaze softening. David walked back towards Ruth and took both her hands in his. “I don’t mind it, really, I don’t.”
</p><p>
Ruth sighed. “I guess… I wish I could tell people about you. Like, I can’t talk to Megan about how I have a boyfriend because she wouldn’t be able to meet you outside of my mind, and I’d have to explain... everything.”
</p><p>
“Saying that I’m Professor X’s son who no-one except you remembers, because I erased myself from reality in order to save the world and I live in your head now, doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.”
</p><p>
“Which is exactly why I don’t tell her. She’d think I’m crazy.”
</p><p>
“Yeah. I’ve spent most of my life with people thinking that I’m crazy. Believe me when I say that it fucking sucks.” David had been trying to sound light-hearted, but Ruth could hear the notes of pain in his voice. She brought her hand to his cheek and tilted his head towards her. The kiss was more chaste than usual, but it had the desired effect of cheering David up. He smiled softly. “Tell me about your day.”
</p><p>
“Well, the math assignment was hard but I did it eventually…”
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div><p>
One long conversation and one telepathic make-out session later, Ruth exited her mindscape and sat up on her bed.
</p><p>
“What were you doing?” asked Megan, as she played with a strand of her pink hair.
</p><p>
Ruth searched for an excuse. “I was –<span class="small"><sub> thank you, sorry</sub></span> – sorting through my mindscape.”
</p><p>
“You’ve been doing that a lot lately.”
</p><p>
Ruth shrugged.
</p><p>
She got ready for bed, and slipped under her blankets. Then, she pulled off her blindfold, set it down on her nightstand, and murmured a ‘goodnight’ to Megan, before flicking off the light with her telekinesis.
</p><p>
While Ruth slept, the world changed.
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div><p>
She woke before her alarm feeling unusually well-rested. Ruth smiled into her pillow. A whole half-hour before she needed to get out of bed.
</p><p>
She lay back and entered her mindscape. Early morning flirting with David was an excellent way to start the day. Over the years she’d never thought that her mindspace was anything special, but since David had taken up residence there she’d started to view it in a new light. Despite her life-long lack of self-esteem, Ruth had to admit that the pale gray stone arches and walkways were as elegant as the flowers that decorated them were vibrant.
</p><p>
The fact that her boyfriend lived there was a pretty big bonus, too.
</p><p>
“David,” she called playfully, “I’ve got time before I need to get up. We can have some fun.”
</p><p>
No response.
</p><p>
That wasn’t normal. Every time she called for him, he would appear with a wry smile and a witty compliment.
</p><p>
“David?”
</p><p>
Still nothing.
</p><p>
“David?” 
</p><p>
Nothing.
</p><p>
“David!” she yelled.
</p><p>
No. No, this couldn’t be happening. He always came to her when she called.
</p><p>
Ruth took off at a run, sprinting along the walkways of her mind. She checked her whole mindscape, then checked it again. She was the only person there.
</p><p>
David was gone.
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div><p>
Ruth sat bold upright, clutching the sheets. Her mind was an empty grave.
</p><p>
“Gee,” said Megan, “Did you have a premonition of the apocalypse or something?”
</p><p>
“No,” Ruth whispered hoarsely. “I… I think – <span class="small"><sub>no, pardon</sub></span> – I think someone just died.”
</p><p>
Megan swung her legs off her bed so that she was facing Ruth. “Shit, is it someone we know?”
</p><p>
Ruth shook her head. “No. You wouldn’t know him.” <i>No-one knows him except me.</i>
</p><p>
She had no eyes to cry with, but she buried her head in the blankets and sobbed all the same.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I’ve had the idea for this fic pretty much since I finished reading X-Men Legacy. It’s turned out about twice as long as I planned, which was unexpected. Once I got writing, there were places that the plot needed to go which I hadn’t anticipated when I began.</p><p>The title for this fic is taken from the song ‘Be Lucky’ by Show of Hands. I think the quote is very David.</p><p>Comments and kudos are always welcome &lt;3</p><p>Disclaimer: I do not own the characters. I am not making money from this work.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Larry was having a great time, driving his truck and singing off-key to Jimmy Buffet. He’d just finished a spirited rendition of ‘Treat her like a lady’, and was about to begin an equally enthusiastic ‘Margaritaville’, when he spotted something beside the road. A person, sprawled on their back. He braked sharply.
</p><p>
Once he’d jumped down from the truck, he walked into the field where the body lay. As Larry approached, he got a better look at the figure.
</p><p>
Shit, it was a kid.
</p><p>
The boy was in his teens, his clothing filthy and torn beyond recognition. Long black hair had been plastered to his scalp by the rain from earlier in the day, and he looked worryingly thin.
</p><p>
“Uh, hello?” Larry called. The boy didn’t wake up.
</p><p>
Dredging up first-aid knowledge from the back of his brain, Larry checked the boy’s pulse. A little fast, but at least he was alive. Larry shook the kid gently by the shoulder, but the teenager still didn’t wake.
</p><p>
Some kind of coma, maybe? He couldn’t smell any alcohol, so maybe it was drugs. But they were miles from any kind of town or city. If he’d had an overdose and been dumped, surely he would have been left by the road, not in the middle of the field. Besides, the grass was long and the only disturbances in it had been made by Larry when he walked over. Come to think of it, there was no sign of how the boy had ended up in the field at all. No tyre tracks and no trail of footprints.
</p><p>
It was as if he’d dropped from the sky.
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div><p>
“No, I don’t know his name,” said Larry for what had to be the sixth time. The hospital staff were starting to piss him off. “And I don’t know what’s wrong with him. And no, I didn’t find any ID on him either.”
</p><p>
A nurse dashed out of a set of double doors and rushed over to the doctor who Larry had been talking to. “Doctor Jones, we’ve got a situation with that John Doe who just got brought in.”
</p><p>
“What is it?”
</p><p>
“He–” she swallowed. “I was about to take some blood, and he started <i>floating</i>.”
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div><p>
David came to slowly. His head felt like it was filled with stuffing, and his alters were sluggish and irritable.
</p><p>
Where was he?
</p><p>
He could hear people’s voices as if from a great distance away, and a machine was beeping.
</p><p>
Then things seemed to come into sharp focus. His eyes snapped open. He was lying in a hospital bed. The whole room smelled of disinfectant. The lights were too bright. There was a needle in his arm. A needle. In his arm. What was in the I.V., what were they pumping into his system? Were they going to sedate him? Put him in an induced coma again?
</p><p>
He started to hyperventilate. A nurse came over, murmuring words that he was still too addled to understand. She placed her hand on his shoulder and he shoved her off. David ripped the I.V. out of his arm and staggered out of the bed. The two nurses in the room started to panic.
</p><p>
“Sir?” said one of them nervously, “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to get back in bed. You’re sick and you need help.”
</p><p>
David was about to protest that he didn’t need any help when he found himself swaying. He braced his back against the wall to stop himself falling. Things would be easier if the lights weren’t so bright. Things would be easier if he felt less drowsy.
</p><p>
“Look,” said the other nurse, as he approached with a syringe, “I’m just going to inject this into you, and you’ll start to feel a lot better.”
</p><p>
David’s throat felt like a desert, but he managed to choke out a sentence anyway. “You aren’t going to inject me with jack shit.” He adjusted his position against the wall. “Stay the fuck back.”
</p><p>
The nurse took another step towards him, and David thrust out his palm. A wave of telekinetic force pushed the man back against the opposite wall. David flicked his fingers and the syringe flew from the man’s grasp. He clenched his fist and it crumpled.
</p><p>
“Stay away from me.”
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div><p>
The doctor shook Linda’s hand enthusiastically. “Thank you so much for driving over at such short notice, Dr Carter. I’m Dr Jones. Are you… aware of the situation?”
</p><p>
Linda nodded. “You have a John Doe; he’s some kind of telekinetic; you need advice for treating him.” Advising hospitals on how to treat injured superhumans wasn’t what Linda thought she would end up doing as a job, but she had to admit that she was damn good at it. “Could I get a look at his file?”
</p><p>
“Sure.”
</p><p>
Dr Jones handed her a clipboard, and Linda started to flick through. She pointed at a scrawled note next to one of the boxes. “What does this say? I can’t read the handwriting.”
</p><p>
“It says ‘not breathing’. When we brought him in he had a heartbeat but he wasn’t breathing. We tried mouth-to-mouth, we tried everything. Only after about ten minutes, we realised that he wasn’t showing any signs of suffocating. About half an hour after that, he started breathing again. Completely normally, too.”
</p><p>
Linda kept reading. “And I see all the tests for drugs in his system came back negative. His body was fine; he just wasn’t waking up.”
</p><p>
“Yeah, and then we did a brain scan.” Doctor Jones leaned over and flipped over a few pages until she got to the results of the scan. “Take a look at that.”
</p><p>
“Jesus Christ.” According to the test results, the John Doe had been having continuous seizures. Except that the only evidence for the seizures was his brain activity. His body had been working completely fine.
</p><p>
“I know, right? So we put in a fluids I.V. and decided that in a few days he could be moved to someplace with better tech that what we have. God knows our funding isn’t the best. But then he woke up. Freaked out, pulled out his I.V. He flat-out refused to accept any medication and he used his powers to stop anyone getting close. We decided to interpret it as… ah… lack of consent for any further medical procedures. He’s still too weak to leave his room. Very paranoid; he won’t eat anything we give him unless it’s in an unopened packet.”
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div><p>
He was sitting on the bed when she entered the room, his long black hair tangled and falling loose around his shoulders. One of his eyes was green and the other was blue. It was called heterochromia; Linda remembered it from a pub quiz she’d done years ago. The loose hospital clothes hung off his figure in a way that made Linda worry. It took a lot more than teenage growth spurts for someone to get that thin.
</p><p>
He studied her calmly. “You’re not like the other doctors.” He was British.
</p><p>
Linda straightened her blouse. “No, I specialise in treating superhumans.” She paused. “What’s your name?”
</p><p>
“I’ll do you a deal. If I tell you my name, you’ll google it?”
</p><p>
She frowned. “I don’t see why… uh, okay. I’ll google it.”
</p><p>
“David Haller.”
</p><p>
Linda pulled out her phone and searched.
</p><p>
Shit. Oh shit. She tried to keep calm. “You’re Charles Xavier’s son?”
</p><p>
David sagged. “Yeah. And the fact that I’m in public records presents a whole range of problems.”
</p><p>
Linda smiled in a way that she hoped came off as reassuring. “Look, David, you’re sick. I can help you. Could you let me at least examine you, and then maybe I can get you something that will make you feel better?”
</p><p>
Her words clearly hadn’t helped; David’s jaw clenched. “Look, Linda, I’m sure you consider yourself to be a nice, upstanding kind of person, but in my experience, nice, upstanding people have a habit of wanting me to be put into an induced coma, so excuse me if I’m not willing to let you poke at me until you come up with a prescription.”
</p><p>
Linda scrolled through David’s Wikipedia page, and thought about his reaction to the IV, and said, “You were subjected to medical abuse?” It was an educated guess; he’d spent most of his life in clinics and was clearly opposed to taking any kind of medication.
</p><p>
“Yeah, I guess that would be the word for it. The thing about crazy people is that almost nobody cares if we’re happy. Means that doctors and nurses can get away with all kinds of things.”
</p><p>
“Well, I’m not that kind of nurse,” Linda said quickly.
</p><p>
“You’re not a nurse at all, you’re a doctor. But you like to call yourself a nurse, which is odd.”
</p><p>
“Are you reading my mind?”
</p><p>
“Only enough to tell if you’re going to try and hurt me in the near future. And really, I don’t need any treatment. My body recovers from injuries very quickly. A few weeks and I’ll be fine.”
</p><p>
There was a chair in the corner of the room. Linda pulled it over and sat. “You still look like you could do with some help, David. I’ve seen the news. Your father died a few months ago. I’m very sorry.”
</p><p>
He frowned. “A few months… huh. For me, it’s been a lot longer than that. About a year.”
</p><p>
She nodded. “I understand you have some mental health issues?”
</p><p>
David laughed quietly. “Some.”
</p><p>
“Dissociative identity disorder and autism. Though at a guess I’d say you have PTSD as well.”
</p><p>
“Yeah. Probably.”
</p><p>
“David, I want to help you. I understand that you probably don’t want any medical treatment, given your past, but if there’s anything else I can do…”
</p><p>
David seemed to think for a while. “My teleportation still hasn’t come back online, and I feel like shit. If you want to help, you can drive me to Westchester. To my father’s school.”
</p><p>
“Okay.”
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div><p>
They had the same appreciation for Bowie.
</p><p>
It was an eight hour drive to Westchester from the Ohio hospital where David had ended up, and Linda blasted Bowie at intervals.
</p><p>
About two hours into the journey, David’s head had begun to nod. He’d slept for three hours, waking in a panic.
</p><p>
“You didn’t take advantage of it,” he said as his breathing slowed. “You could have done anything to me while I slept, but you didn’t.”
</p><p>
What had this kid been through?
</p><p>
“I took a Hippocratic oath,” Linda told him.
</p><p>
They got lunch at a drive-through. David said he’d eat anything that was kosher, so she got him a chicken sandwich that he devoured in a way that only a hungry teenager could.
</p><p>
With an hour and a half left to go, Linda said, “If you were abused by the doctors your father had looking after you, and at least a few of those doctors were also members of the X-Men… why are you going to Westchester?”
</p><p>
David was silent for a few minutes. Eventually, he said, “There’s someone I love in Westchester. I need to know that she’s alright, and – there’s a possibility that she won’t remember me anymore. Nobody was meant to remember me except her, so if people can remember that I exist now, then… I’m worried that it’s gone the other way around somehow.”
</p><p>
“You love her, huh?” said Linda kindly.
</p><p>
“Yeah,” said David, “We went the whole nine yards. Star-crossed lovers fated to destroy each other. But I couldn’t bear to destroy her. If she can’t remember me… I’ll be honest with her. She’s a telepath, I’ll let her read my mind. See if she wants me. If she doesn’t then… I don’t know.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>So here we have Linda Carter, the Night Nurse, in what is one of the first times that David’s been respected by a medical professional. Better late than never, right?</p><p>I wouldn’t say that David’s afraid of needles; it’s more that he’s afraid of what people might be injecting into him.</p><p>I’ve always headcanoned that David doesn’t actually need to breathe. He just does it out of habit.</p><p>This chapter is sort-of a reference to the 2018 Legion mini-series, but that series was full of crappy writing, so it’s not much of a reference.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>David’s anxiety was an over-wound spring in his chest, so bad that his alters were almost silent.
</p><p>
Linda pulled up outside the gates and David got out and thanked her and shut the car door and she drove off.
</p><p>
The gates were locked, but the bricks in the wall were large and sturdy, and the wall wasn’t even that high, so he climbed it easily and jumped down on the other side, then started walking up the driveway to the house.
</p><p>
He knew that a security camera had probably picked up on his presence, and he was certain of it when he caught sight of the front of the mansion; no children playing, but the X-Men were standing in formation outside it, waiting for him.
</p><p>
Storm took a step forward. “Legion. We’re so sorry about your father. May I ask why you’re here?”
</p><p>
“No. And don’t call me Legion. I’m not here for you lot, anyway.”
</p><p>
He looked up at the mansion, and opened his mental shields just enough that any telepath inside would know that he, David, was outside.
</p><p>
About half a minute later, the front door was thrown open. Ruth sprinted past the X-Men and crushed him with the best hug he’d ever received. He buried his face in her shoulder, her hair soft under his fingertips.
</p><p>
Once they pulled apart, David noticed that the X-Men were still standing there, now wearing a variety of surprised expressions. He glared at them over Ruth’s shoulder, and teleported himself and Ruth to a different part of the mansion’s grounds; an out-of-sight clearing in the woods that sported a small stone bench.
</p><p>
“Is here okay?” he asked her, “Because we should probably talk about – mmph.” After several seconds and a very intense kiss, Ruth released the front of David’s shirt and stepped back.
</p><p>
“I thought you were dead. You weren’t in my mind anymore.”
</p><p>
“I don’t know what happened,” he told her truthfully, “But I’ve got a theory. When I wiped myself out of reality, it created a paradox – in order to make it so that I’d never existed, I had to have existed in the first place. The universe doesn’t like paradoxes, so it just – put me back. From what I can gather, none of the events that led up to me erasing myself happened.”
</p><p>
“The prophecy is gone,” Ruth told him. “I checked. You’re not my nemesis anymore.”
</p><p>
“Oh. So we – we might actually get to have a future together. That’s –” David felt water on his face, and he wiped the tear away. “Fuck. I’ve just realised – don’t think I’ve ever felt good about the future before.”
</p><p>
Ruth took his hand and led him to the bench where they sat down. “Do you want to talk about it?”
</p><p>
“I – yeah. It’s like… y’know, even though I never went to school, mum and dad still made sure I had an education. Took all my exams in a padded cell and when I was done I had to slide the pen across the floor towards the examiner because they didn’t trust me not to try and stab someone with a pencil. There was this poem I had to study for an English assignment once, The Lady of Shalott. I don’t know if you know it. But the point is, there’s this woman, the Lady of Shalott.
</p><p>
“She’s lived her whole life on this island, trapped in a castle. And every day she’s allowed to look into a mirror, and she can see the reflection of her window and look at the outside world while she weaves her tapestry. But she’s cursed, and if she ever looks out of the window instead of into the mirror, or stops weaving, or leaves the castle, she’ll die. She doesn’t actually know the specifics of what the curse is, so at first it doesn’t bother her. She weaves, she sings. She thinks she’s happy, but she’s not. She just doesn’t feel anything in particular. People know she’s there but they don’t try to see if the curse can be lifted. They think she’s magical and… they’re afraid of her.
</p><p>
“And through her mirror she can see all the people walking by her castle. One day, she sees these two young lovers walking past and it occurs to her that she’s sick of watching the world through reflections, and she realises that there’s no-one in the world who loves her. Later, she sees a knight riding by. He’s beautiful. She wants him.
</p><p>
“So she leaves the loom and the mirror, and looks out of the window. For the first time in her life she sees the real world. But then the mirror cracks and she knows she’s triggered the curse. With nothing left to lose she leaves the castle and finds that there’s a boat tied up at the jetty, so she gets on it and leaves the island. And on the journey she can see everything that she couldn’t see in the mirror. She dies halfway down the river. People find her body, and there’s a note she left. All it says is her name and that they don’t need to be afraid of her.”
</p><p>
David paused. “To be honest, some of the wording of the poem’s kind of weird, and when I was younger I didn’t understand why she’d give up her life just so that she could look out of a window instead of into a mirror. But I do now. The year that doesn’t exist anymore – the year I spent with you – was the first I’d ever been properly living, not hidden away. It almost made sense to me that the two of us would be destined to destroy each other, because why the fuck would the universe let me stay happy? It felt like there would always be consequences; there would always be a curse.”
</p><p>
Ruth squeezed his hand. “You once said to me that you’d shatter any future that tried to divide us.”
</p><p>
David shrugged. “The thing about curses is that people try to break them. And the fact that you’re here and I’m here and the future we tried to avoid is gone means that… I think I kind of did.”
</p><p>
“So what now?” asked Ruth. “Except for the fact that I’m going to have to explain to my teachers that I’m dating you, again.”
</p><p>
David winced. “How did the conversation go the first time?”
</p><p>
“Well, at first they thought you were mind-controlling me, but then I insisted that I’d made the first move. Then they tried to persuade me not to date you, which didn’t work, and in the end I just told them that not letting us date would piss you off, and they didn’t want to do that, so then they just ignored it.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “But seriously, what are you going to do now?”
</p><p>
“Well, all the bad things that happened last year because of me didn’t happen, but that means that the good stuff didn’t happen either. So I’m going to do what I did before, but do it better this time. On the way here I checked for your brother, and he’s definitely dead, so if I go to rescue Sojobo and Karasu, they should end up okay. I can help Santi again. Work to free Aquiria. And mum. Mum’s alive again.”
</p><p>
“David?”
</p><p>
“Yeah?”
</p><p>
“Please don’t pull that stunt with the Red Skull again. It was fucking terrifying.”
</p><p>
“Well, I don’t have that gold bastard living in my head pretending to be my dad anymore, so my powers are coming easier to me. Gives me more options. I can take fewer risks. After that, I’m not sure. Guess I’ll just keep helping mutants. And… I want to see if Merzah’s alive.”
</p><p>
Ruth took his hand. “David, please don’t blame yourself if he isn’t. What happened in the Himalayas wasn’t your fault. If –”
</p><p>
Both their heads snapped round at the encroaching presence of several determined minds.
</p><p>
“Shit,” said David, “The X-Men have really got it in for me today.” He kissed her quickly. “Love you.”
</p><p>
“Love you too.”
</p><p>
David stood. “I’ll text you as soon as I get a phone. Or we can talk on the psychic plane or something.”
</p><p>
Then he teleported.
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div><p>
The clinic was still there.
</p><p>
Still. Fucking. There!
</p><p>
Which meant that David no longer had hundreds of deaths on his conscience. Which meant that Merzah was still alive.
</p><p>
He descended slowly, mountain winds whipping about him. He toned them down with telekinesis; in fact, he could have reduced them to nothing, but he liked the feel of the icy air on his face.
</p><p>
When he touched down, it didn’t take long for Merzah to find him. “David,” he sighed. “Jesus. Where’ve you been?”
</p><p>
David began to say that it was complicated when Merzah raised and hand and cut him off. “Sorry, sorry. That was a shitty thing to say. I – I’m sorry about your dad. God knows we had enough therapy sessions that I know things between the two of you were complicated, but still…”
</p><p>
David nodded. God, it was good to see him alive again. “Yeah,” he said, “about the therapy… I don’t want you as my therapist anymore.”
</p><p>
“David, you need treatment. Especially after losing your father.”
</p><p>
“I know. And I’m going to find someone else to see. It’s just… you couldn’t help me. Your method of beating my alters into submission didn’t work. But I’ve found a way of living with my condition, and I’ve managed a sort of equilibrium with them, and I think I’d like to turn over a new leaf. But I’ll still visit, if you like.”
</p><p>
Merzah smiled. “I’d like that. You can take a look over my patients from time to time, as well. Nobody can heal a psychic wound like you, kid.”
</p><p>
“Okay.”
</p><p>
“You know, now that you’re not my patient, you’re allowed to be my friend. So, speaking as a friend to another friend, how about we go have a cup of tea in my cabin? You can tell me what you’ve been doing these past months.”
</p><p>
David took in a breath of crisp mountain air and let it out again. “Yeah. I think I’d like that. I’ve had a really long year.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>In my early years of secondary school, I had to study the poem The Lady of Shalott by Tennyson. I also later realised that a poster of Waterhouse’s painting of the Lady of Shalott sitting in her boat was hanging on the wall at home. Some of the rhymes aren’t that good, but some of the phrasing blew me away. The part when she says ‘I am half sick of shadows’ always makes me feel deeply. Waterhouse also painted that part of the poem – we see the Lady, paused in her work, and through the mirror we see the lovers who’ve shown her what she’s only just realised she wants.</p><p>I think that to David Haller, isolated and feared and alone on Muir Island, the story of the cursed woman in her tower would be quitter relatable. I think that at the start of X-Men Legacy, David is also ‘sick of shadows’. That, and the Arthurian tie-in with Charles Xavier’s love for The Once and Future King.</p><p>I always wished that there was some way for the Lady in the poem to have a happy life outside the tower. Lately I’ve realised that a lot of my favourite stories are tragedies. In this story, I’m letting David have a life outside his own metaphorical tower.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Once David was done talking, Merzah said, “Shit. That’s a lot to live through, kid.”
</p><p>
“I know.”</p><p>
“What’re you gonna do now, then? You know you’ve always got a place here, if you want it. I kept your cabin for you.”
</p><p>
David considered it. “Thanks, but no. I don’t want to be cut off from the world again. Don’t get me wrong, the view is beautiful, but it’s quite isolating out here. I mean, I’m at least two decades younger than everyone else. And I’d like to be in the same time zone as Ruth.”
</p><p>
Merzah gave a rueful smile. “Yeah, having a woman in your life can change things. Any plans for the future?”
</p><p>
“A few. I mean, I think I’ll get a place in the Rockies. I like living in the mountains. I’ll probably just use reality manipulation to make a house, I mean, it’s not like I’ve got any money.”
</p><p>
“Actually, about money, kid…” Merzah held his gaze. “Your father’s will – he left a sum of money to be used for you care. Quite a lot of money, actually.”
</p><p>
“To be used for my care,” said David, with a tone of bitterness. “As in, you can use the money to look after me, but I can’t touch it myself.” His alters seethed within him. Ksenia told him to teleport to Charles Xavier’s grave so that she could cut it into tiny little pieces. He told her no. It would change nothing.
</p><p>
“I mean, sure, that’s what it says in the will,” said Merzah philosophically, “But I have a thought that if you were to set up a bank account, and then I were to send the monthly fee I get for caring for you to that account as soon as I get it, then, well, I’d technically be caring for you, wouldn’t I?”
</p><p>
“You’d do that?” David asked.
</p><p>
Merzah cleared his throat. “Kid, you’re just starting off in life. You need more than the clothes on your back. You need a home, food, and money to pay for both those things. You want to leave the clinic? Fine by me. But I won’t send you out into the world with nothing.”
</p><p>
David was quiet for a time, until he said, “I don’t know how to set up a bank account.”
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div><p>
His mother started when she saw him. He’d wondered how she would react to finding that her estranged son had broken into her office, but he wasn’t surprised by the fear he sensed in her mind.
</p><p>
“David.”
</p><p>
“Hi.”
</p><p>
“I thought you were dead.”
</p><p>
“No,” he said wearily, “No you didn’t. You know how hard it is to keep me down.” He paused. “I know I’ve been away for a few months. During that time I found out why you left me on Muir.”
</p><p>
“David…”
</p><p>
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m still pissed off about it. It traumatised me to the bone. You abandoned me, you stopped visiting, I was all on my own. All because you thought that normal things should stay in the normal world, normal human society, and things like me belonged in the part of the world that’s fucked up and weird. It didn’t once cross your mind that maybe, just maybe, I wanted some normality in my life.”
</p><p>
Her eyes were wet. “David I – I’m sorry for leaving you, I… why are you here?”
</p><p>
“Because I saw you die. Not a prophetic vision or anything like that. It was just a – a version of events where I watched you die.”
</p><p>
His mother swallowed, walked to one of the chairs in front of her desk, and gestured for him to sit. “How did it happen?”
</p><p>
David sat down in the other chair. “You were shot. A sniper. He was aiming for me, but we both moved. You told me not to heal you – said that my healing ability was a ‘my world’ sort of thing. But in your world, when someone gets shot, they just die.”
</p><p>
She held his gaze. “And you watched your mother die in front of you. Just like Daniel.”
</p><p>
“Almost exactly like Daniel. But slower. Daniel never did manage any last words.”
</p><p>
“I worried about you,” she admitted. “While you were missing. I kept thinking how anything could be happening to you out there.”
</p><p>
“… Pretty much everything did happen to me. Some of it was good, but most of it was shit.”
</p><p>
“Losing Charles can’t have been easy for you.”
</p><p>
“It wasn’t.” He left it at that. Momentarily, David thought about asking his mother how she had reacted to his father’s death, but he decided against it. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.
</p><p>
David put a folded slip of paper on Gabrielle’s desk. “I have a phone now. That’s my number. I’m giving you a chance to be more present in my life, but it’s your decision.”
</p><p>
Gabrielle picked up the paper. “I’ll call you. I promise.”
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div><p>
Being used as enforcers for one of Tokyo’s most violent gangs had left Sojobo and Karasu with the tendency to refuse to admit that they had any weaknesses whatsoever. Despite this, David had figured out pretty early on that they liked bedtime stories.
</p><p>
Once he’d put them to bed, he went downstairs to the living room where Ruth was waiting for him.
</p><p>
“Those kids act so tough,” he said fondly, “But you start reading to them and suddenly they’re eleven again.”
</p><p>
Ruth smiled as he joined her on the sofa. “Admit it; they remind you of yourself a little bit.”
</p><p>
He shrugged. “I won’t deny it, though I was much worse at that age. Kept setting fire to things, though technically that was Cyndi. Still, after everything they’ve been through, I think I can give them a good life. They’ve still got enough of their childhood left for that, I think. I – I guess I just hope I can look after them properly.”
</p><p>
She kissed him. “You can do it. You can do anything.”
</p><p>
David cupped her face in his hand, sliding his fingers into her hair. “I know. I think I can do this. I think I’m finally allowed to have a good life.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The End.</p><p>I loved the way that David almost instantly slid into ‘older brother mode’ when he met Sojobo and Karasu, and I always thought it was a shame that we didn’t get more of their interactions.</p><p>I’m also letting David have a certain degree of resolution with his mother, and at least a chance of them reconciling.</p><p>And I’m letting David be happy because he deserves it.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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